Re:Self-driving car accidents: Robot drivers are ‘odd, and t...
by mikeash on Monday October 16, 2017 @01:39PM
(#15485098)
Crossing solid lines is not illegal in my state. Drifting a bit out of your lane is pretty dangerous. Usually you get away with it, but if two people do it at the same time while adjacent, you're going to bump. Do it when there's oncoming traffic in the next lane (which I see all the damned time) then you could easily get people killed. Mildly exceeding the speed limit is fine, but people don't do it in a carefully considered way because they know it's still safe, they do it because they're in a hurry and know they probably won't get pulled over.
Re:Self-driving car accidents: Robot drivers are ‘odd, and t...
by Bartweiss on Monday October 16, 2017 @02:15PM
(#15485396)
Crossing solid lines (or crossing a gore, at least) is illegal in my state.
Meanwhile, a lot of highway on-ramps are painted with single-lane-width, high-angle merges that are dangerous to adhere to - they leave you making a ~30 degree turn while accelerating into traffic. As a result, everyone starts their merge early in the gore area, matches speed, and merges at a gentle angle.
(The road designers presumably know this, and keep the marked path narrow regardless so that drivers won't attempt to form multiple lanes.)
This is a pretty great example of what I'm describing - I don't think people make great decisions about violating driving rules, but I also don't think it's fair to call safe decisions "inadvertent". Not breaking that law is genuinely dangerous, and people violate it specifically to be safer.
Re:Self-driving car accidents: Robot drivers are ‘odd, and t...
by mikeash on Monday October 16, 2017 @02:44PM
(#15485639)
I think you're attributing way too much thought and care to the average driver. I see people merge early like you describe all over the place where it's completely unnecessary. It's probably not a conscious choice for safety over obeying the rules, it's just random idiocy that happens to work better in this case.
You do not even notice the small ones, which happen all the time. How many people cross solid lines? How many people sometimes drift a bit out of their lane? How many people scrupulously follow the speed limit like a computer does, not even accidentally drifting above it? How many people simply screw up the order of operations at a busy stop sign? How many people always scrupulously use their turn signals in accordance with the local laws? (You may use them frequently, even scrupulously, but I bet you often turn them on what is legally too late.) I've been driving through a construction zone all summer. People definitely don't drive "45 when workers are around". They don't slow down when the workers are behind the concrete barriers and a dozen feet from the road, and may drive 25 when they're sitting right next to the road with just a barrel a bit between you and them.
Even a cop tailing you and desperately hunting for reasons to pull you over still probably lets through plenty of violations. There's too many laws for the cop to keep in their head.